I was generally pleased with chapter 6. That is, I did not feel skeptical or taken aback in reading it as I have felt in some of the previous chapters. The correlations found with kids starting school early and not being as properly socialized or well-rounded made fine sense to me and I can think of examples of guys/girls I have gone to school with in the past where these same observations are present. One of the main finds from chapter 7 was that “divorce during childhood was the single strongest social predictor of early death (p.80)” Certainly this can be a bit worrisome, however I do wonder what the average age of death was overall for non-divorce situations. Because if the average they lived to be was 85, and the average age of divorce children at death was typically 5 years prior, living a life to 80 is a full, I’d assume satisfying life… What I liked was that the authors touched on the other risk factors, many of which divorce often leads to, such as divorce in the participant’s own marriages, or the habits they adopted such as smoking affected longevity. Divorce of one’s parents was often a profound confounding variable.
As I said, I know of guys/girls who started early, like Philip of the Terman study, who have/had very similar characteristics to Philip. As we know as budding psychologists, early playtime in socialization in kids is crucial to development. I am thankful in the case of my brother and I that our parents started us off at the “normal age” of 5 and did not rush us through school and let us socialize and play with kids our age, despite are doing well academically.
My kids will start school at the age of 5 and I will do all I can to help ensure they turn out to be well-rounded individuals (academically, socially, athletically, and mentally). With regards to chapter 7 and divorce, I declare it upon my life and my future spouse and kid’s life there will be no divorce in the Roberson family—in Jesus’ name. And that’s that on that. Additionally, page 87 talks about the power of bouncing back and resiliency; I heard somewhere that life is 20% of what happens to you and 80% of how you react (I think I got that right…). So, a word of advice–always bounce back.
Robo,
I appreciate your review and thoughts on these chapters. I was also pleased by these chapters and share a lot of views on how I wish to raise my kids or build my family in the future. I would not want to put my kids through the trauma of divorce, and I think I heard Brincks use that same quote on bouncing back.